


And After So Many Long Nights, The Dawn

by SelkieWife



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alannys Harlaw - Freeform, Alannys Harlaw/Dagmer Cleftjaw, Dagmer Cleftjaw - Freeform, Dagmer from asoiaf not the show - Freeform, F/M, Fluff, POV Theon Greyjoy, SO MUCH FLUFF, Sansa Stark-centric, Secret Marriage, Secret Relationship, Secret Wedding, Theon Greyjoy & Alannys Greyjoy, Theon Greyjoy & Dagmer Cleftjaw, Theon Greyjoy Lives, Theon Greyjoy-centric, Theonsa-Centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:02:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23146645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SelkieWife/pseuds/SelkieWife
Summary: Sansa and Theon marry each other secretly in the Godswood(Prompt "Secret Relationship" for the Theonsa Challenge)
Relationships: Theon Greyjoy/Sansa Stark
Comments: 13
Kudos: 74
Collections: Theonsa Challenge 2020





	And After So Many Long Nights, The Dawn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nictaylor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nictaylor/gifts).



> Also I should add that I was very influenced by @thecoolestfreakyouknow and “The Pack” while I was writing this- especially the line about the North’s memory being “selective.” GO READ THE PACK!

The Godswood was cloaked in darkness when Theon and Sansa arrived, the hint of dawn just beginning to creep through the crimson leaves. They had chosen dawn because they had both seen enough harrowing nights in the Godswood to last a lifetime. They clasped their hands together as they looked out on the smooth sheet of snow on the ground and the gleam of fiery leaves before them. It was the third year of Winter, but there was the unmistakable smell of spring in the air. The promise of life reaching through the frozen ground to break through the frost covered north. 

Sansa’s eyes were blue as summer skies and when she turned to him and asked, “Are you ready?” Theon inhaled sharply and pulled her into his arms. “Your Grace,” he whispered as he grazed her lips with his own. He liked teasing her with her title in intimate moments like this. But truthfully, though he called her “ _your_ grace,” she was _his_ grace and his hope. 

He would never understand why he was allowed to be alive, healing with Sansa when so many others had died. Why he was allowed to marry her secretly in this Godswood, the very place where he had remembered his name and where she had urged him to rise again. The Gods were not done with him, it seemed. And neither was she.

They came before the heart tree and stood hand in hand. Beneath her white furs and cloak, she was wearing a gown of the lightest grey, adorned with embroidered cascading weirwood leaves, hidden inside her billowing sleeves, similar to her coronation gown but brighter against the lighter grey of the fabric. She had also weaved bits of the weirwood leaves and vines into a delicate crown for her hair, which she wore loose down her back. She still wore her silver lariat at her neck but the needle had been refashioned into an arrow. An arrow for him. He loved how she did that; the hidden meanings and messages she weaved into her attire to reveal her identity… to reveal her heart.

It is something they had both learned to do as hostages. Yet somewhere along the way he had lost that ability. But like so many other things he’d lost, she had brought it back to him. This morning she had swept a cloak of jet black over his shoulders. He had laughed and japed, “Oh, so it is to be the _bride_ cloaking the husband?” But he had stilled at her serious face and his eyes filled with tears as he looked upon her fine work. On the back she had embroidered a brave kraken in Stark greys and silvers with wolf heads sprouting out of the two largest tentacles. It was a perfect blending of their two houses in marriage. Yet, as a Greyjoy by birth and the sworn sword to the Stark Queen, wearing both sigils would hardly draw suspicion. The inside of the cloak was silvery grey with embroidered shimmering weirwood leaves cascading in a similar pattern to her own sleeves. Others would catch a glimpse of the crimson leaves in the folds of his cape and would perhaps find it fitting- since he was “The Hero of the Godswood.” But Theon would look upon them and remember the day of their wedding.

A secret marriage. It was the only way. It was one thing for Theon Greyjoy to be the sworn sword to Sansa Stark, Queen in the North, but it was quite another to become her husband. Though he had saved more members of House Stark than he had harmed, the North’s memory was as selective as it was long, and he was still seen as a traitorous turncloak. It did not chafe him as it once would have. After all, he knew it was earned. And he called himself much harsher names than any that had been leveled at him in recent years. Still, a marriage with him would put her in danger and threaten her rule, and he would not have that. Not after all she had been through to gain independence for the North.

There was a time where he would have done anything for control, for power. But it was because he believed that greatness would bring him love, would bring him belonging. Now with Sansa in his arms, he knew that he would willingly give up any position or consideration for himself if it meant he could be near her. They stood together for a moment, hands clasped and foreheads pressed together before he whispered, “I have something for you.”

He drew out the ring he had kept hidden in a pouch. Rings were a tradition for Ironborn weddings, which was unique in Westeros. It was a custom even more ancient than the cloaking ceremony, though both were practiced in the Iron Islands now. On the Islands, a man couldn’t take a rock wife until he had paid the iron price for the ring he would present to her. But this ring had belonged to his mother. He supposed he did pay the iron price for it in a way. He did not kill his mother outright, but his absence certainly broke her in ways that hastened her death. 

If they were on Pyke, they would be married at the shore with their feet in the salt waves and the ring would be presented to Sansa on the hilt of his family’s ancestral sword. But he did not have his ancestral sword. He had no rights to it anymore. Even if he had, Sansa deserved to be knelt to like the Southron knights that use to fill her dreams. So he went down on his knees in spite of the pain and held the ring up to her.

“In Ironborn wedding ceremonies, the rock wife is always presented with a ring,” he began. “This was my mother’s.” Dagmer had given it to her. It was the first ring he ever got from his raiding. Dagmer Cleftjaw, the man who had trained him in arms, taught him to laugh in the face of danger and who had given him more smiles than both Balon and Eddard Stark combined. He remembered Dagmer always smiling at him in pride with his four fearsome lips and all the rings from his raids glittering on his fingers. He must have been so proud of his first ring. And he had given it to his mother, his Queen. The ring was gold with a dragonglass stone in the center, black with flecks of white throughout. It had been his mother’s favorite ring. She had worn it until her death, even after she had stopped wearing Balon’s. 

“It reminds me of you. It is the Greyjoy colors, but do you see how the flecks in the dragon glass look like snow?” Her eyes were so intent on his face, so open for him that he felt he could sink into them and happily drown there. “I would be honored if you would wear it. No one ever need know the significance,” he said with a gleam of mischief in his eyes. The North thought it could deny them happiness, but they would take what was theirs. 

“Oh Theon,” she murmurred, her eyes glimmering with tears as she reverently took the ring. “It is very fine. I shall wear it always,” she promised as she slipped it onto the index finger of her left hand. He breathed a sigh of relief that it fit so well. After the ring was in place, she placed her arms around him and helped him rise. 

“Who comes before the Old Gods this morn?” Theon asked her.

“Sansa of the House Stark comes here to be wed. A woman grown and the Queen in the North. She comes to beg the blessings of the gods. Who comes to claim her?” She answered in a voice as strong and bright as the dawn.

“Theon of House Greyjoy. Sworn sword and shield of the Queen in the North. Who gives her?”

“She gives herself,” Sansa responded, her eyes shining.

Theon’s voice suddenly felt very raw when he asked, “Queen Sansa, will you take this man?” 

“I take this man,” she responded without the slightest hesitation and his heart nearly broke from sheer happiness.

She smiled and pulled a flask from her cloak. 

“I read about the wedding ceremonies in the Islands. I am sorry we are not near the sea…”

Theon shrugged away her apology. It was hardly important, she _had_ to know that.

“Wait…” she laughed at his wordless protest. “I thought perhaps we could collect some water from the pool and use that instead for the blessing.”

Water rose to his eyes at her words. The fact that she had thought to incorporate his culture's traditions took his breath away. He took the flask from her with trembling fingers and crossed over to the black pool. It had been getting warmer, but there was still a thin sheet of ice covering the top. He punched it with his fist and let the Godswood water flow into her cup. He came back and stood before her, his eyes asking for permission. She nodded and he lifted the cup above her head and let half of it fall over her face. 

“Sansa, my wife. I promise to be a good husband to you. To bless you with salt, stone, and steel and to pray for your happiness from this day until my last day.”

Sansa took the cold water over her head as if she had lived her life barefoot on the shore, playing in the rough current and dancing in the waves. He wiped the water from her eyes with pride and she took the cup from him. Lifting it above his head she poured it over his hair. It trickled down his face, cold and sharp and clean, the water of the north mixing with the salt of his own tears. It seemed their marriage would be blessed with salt water after all.

“Theon, my husband. I promise to be a good rock wife to you. To bless you with salt, stone, and steel and to pray to the Drowned God for you while you are away on your raids, from this day until my last day.”

He couldn’t help laughing when she mentioned raids, though he was incredibly touched that she had bothered to learn the actual words of the ceremony.

His voice was thick with tears when he whispered, “You are mine and I am yours from this day until my last day… If you’ll have me.”

He had asked her the same question when he returned to Winterfell to fight against the army of the dead. Then as now, Sansa gave him his answer without words. She swiftly closed the distance that remained between them with a strong, sure embrace and a blissful kiss.


End file.
